Hungary expels 10 Russian diplomats in sharp policy reversal

Hungary's new government has ordered ten Russian diplomats out of Budapest, accusing them of activities that threaten the country's security and sovereignty. Foreign Minister Anita Orbán announced the expulsion without elaborating on specifics, but the move represents a stunning reversal of nearly a decade of Hungarian policy that had positioned the country as Russia's most reliable partner within the European Union.

For years under Viktor Orbán, Hungary maintained unusually warm relations with Moscow. The previous government resisted EU sanctions packages against Russia, blocked aid shipments to Ukraine, and justified its stance partly by citing the economic benefit of cheap Russian oil. When the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, Hungary's foreign minister did not once summon the Russian ambassador to lodge a protest—a striking absence that commentators noted repeatedly. That posture shifted dramatically after Orbán's electoral defeat in April, when Péter Magyar's Tisza party won power on a platform promising more pragmatic, less ideologically aligned relations with Russia.

Magyar and his foreign minister have since moved quickly to distance Hungary from its predecessor's Kremlin alignment. In May, Orbán summoned the Russian ambassador to protest a major drone strike on the Transcarpathia region of Ukraine, which is home to a substantial Hungarian minority. Last month, the government formally adopted new foreign policy guidelines declaring that Russian conduct in Ukraine "poses a threat to Hungary, Europe and the global order, and also puts the Hungarian minority living in Transcarpathia in serious danger." Both the prime minister and foreign minister have called publicly for Russia to end the war.

The expulsion decision comes against a backdrop of long-standing concerns about Russian intelligence operations at the embassy in Budapest. Before the April elections, the independent Russian investigative website Agentsvo reported that 15 of the 47 Russian embassy staff were linked to Russian intelligence agencies, with six others possibly connected. András Telkes, a former deputy head of Hungarian foreign intelligence, told the BBC that Russian spying activity had been investigated before the election but that the Fidesz government had blocked any action. The Russian embassy denied allegations that three military intelligence officers had traveled to Budapest to influence the Hungarian vote, but such denials have become routine—Russia consistently claims its embassies are not used for espionage, even as hundreds of Russian diplomats have been expelled across Europe since 2022.

Moscow's response has been swift and threatening. The Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman in Moscow said the expulsion would draw "a harsh and painful" response to what she called the "Russophobic lobby." Ambassador Evgeny Stanislavov complained bitterly that Hungary's promise of pragmatic cooperation had proven worthless and denounced the expulsion as "an unprecedented and ungrounded escalation." Orbán stressed that the decision "does not imply breaking off diplomatic relations with Russia" and emphasized her intention to maintain dialogue based on mutual respect, but the ambassador's reaction suggested Moscow was in no mood for such reassurances.

The question now is how far Russia will go in retaliation. Telkes warned that if Moscow expels ten Hungarian diplomats in a tit-for-tat move, it could effectively close Hungary's embassy there entirely. That possibility underscores how thoroughly the relationship has fractured—from a partnership Moscow believed it could rely on to a confrontation that could leave both countries without functioning diplomatic presence in each other's capitals.